What wage payment dates are
Wage payment dates, also searched for as the salary payment date, are the dates by which the wage must reach the worker. Their source is Article 90 of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل), which governs how often the wage is paid, in what currency and through what channel.
What exactly Article 90 of the Labor Law settles, and what it leaves to other documents, can drop out of summaries.
Wage payment dates under Article 90 of the Labor Law: a frequency, not a date
The provision speaks of payment once a month and of payment at least once a week. It names no day of the month, and it says neither “the end of the month” nor “the start of the month”. So Article 90 of the Labor Law fixes how often the wage is paid, not the day on which it is paid.
The day itself is a matter for the employment contract and the work regulation (لائحة تنظيم العمل). The model work regulation (النموذج الموحّد) annexed to the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) leaves a blank in its Article 15 for the establishment to fill in with the wage payment date. Treating Article 90 of the Labor Law as fixing a calendar date attributes to it something it does not contain, and relying on the establishment’s habit alone rests the date on no written document at all.
What a month means for wage payment dates
Article 2 of the Labor Law defines the month as thirty days unless the employment contract or the work regulation provides otherwise. The monthly cycle therefore runs on that default unless a written provision in one of those two documents displaces it. That is also where a disagreement about which month is meant can be settled, before any disagreement about which day.
The definition concerns the length of the month in the payment cycle. It is a rule about time, and it is cited here only for that.
The four cases of wage payment dates in Article 90 of the Labor Law
Paragraph 1 of Article 90 of the Labor Law sets out four cases, and the fourth is the one that summaries can leave out:
- Workers paid by the day (العمال باليومية). Their wages are paid at least once a week.
- Workers on a monthly wage. Their wages are paid once a month.
- Piece work that takes more than two weeks. The worker receives a payment each week in proportion to the work completed, and the remainder of the wage is paid in full during the week following delivery of the work.
- Every other case. Wages are paid at least once a week.
Take an example of the third case. A piece of work is agreed at SAR 24,000 and is expected to take six weeks, which is more than two. If by the end of the first week the worker has completed a quarter of the work, a proportionate payment is due for that week: 24,000 × 25% = SAR 6,000. The same applies week by week according to what has been completed, and the remainder of the wage is then paid in full during the week after delivery, not on the first monthly payroll date that follows it. An employer that pushed the whole amount to the end of month payroll would depart from the cycle of this case at two points: the weekly payments, and the date of the remainder.
The fourth case leaves no gap. Because of it, no form of wage falls outside Article 90 of the Labor Law, and a worker whose arrangement does not appear in the first three cases is paid weekly, not monthly. It reaches any arrangement that is neither a monthly wage, nor a daily wage, nor piece work taking more than two weeks.
The way the cases are worded also matters for piece rate pay. A piece rate is a method of paying the wage, and how long the job takes bears on which of the four cases governs its payment dates.
What is paid on wage payment dates: two definitions in Article 2 of the Labor Law
The date is half the question. The other half is the amount that arrives on it, and Article 2 of the Labor Law defines two terms rather than one:
- The basic wage (الأجر الأساسي). Article 2 of the Labor Law defines it as everything given to the worker in return for their work, under a written or unwritten contract, whatever the kind of wage or the method of payment, plus periodic increments (العلاوات الدورية). The definition contains no exclusion list, and it names no particular allowance in either direction.
- The actual wage (الأجر الفعلي). Article 2 of the Labor Law defines it as the basic wage plus all other due increases established for the worker in return for effort spent in the work, for risks met in performing it, or for the work under the contract or the work regulation. The provision then lists five items: commission and percentages of sales or of profits; allowances due for energy spent or risks met in performing the work, rather than every allowance; increases that may be granted in line with the cost of living or to meet family burdens; a grant or bonus, where it is stipulated in the contract or the work regulation or has been customarily granted until workers came to regard it as part of the wage rather than a gift; and benefits in kind.
The last item carries a valuation rule that can be lost in a summary. A benefit in kind counts where the employer is bound to provide it by the contract or the work regulation, and it is valued at a maximum equal to two months’ basic wage a year, unless the contract or the work regulation values it higher. So it is a valuation rule with a condition, a ceiling and a way to raise the ceiling, not a flat inclusion.
Article 2 of the Labor Law also settles the unqualified word: wherever the Labor Law says “the wage” without a qualifier, it means the actual wage. The texts of Articles 70, 71, 84, 92, 93, 94, 137 and 138 of the Labor Law have been checked against that rule, and each uses the word without a qualifier, so each runs on the actual wage. We have not added Article 90 of the Labor Law to that list, because adding an article requires reading its text for a qualifier, and the list records what has been checked rather than what is assumed.
Wage payment dates when the amount is not fixed: Articles 95 and 96 of the Labor Law
A payment date assumes a known amount, and the Labor Law has two rules for the case where the amount is not known in advance:
- A wage the contract does not state. Under Article 95 of the Labor Law, where neither the employment contract nor the work regulation states the wage, the pay assessed for work of the same kind in the establishment applies instead. Failing that, it is assessed by the custom of the trade in the locality, and failing that, the labour court assesses it according to the requirements of justice. The same sequence determines the kind and extent of the service the worker owes.
- A wage paid by the piece, by production or wholly by commission. Under Article 96 of the Labor Law, where the wage is set by the piece or by production, the average the worker received over their actual working days in the last year of service is the basis for calculating any entitlement under the Law. Where the wage is made up entirely of commissions or percentages of sales or the like, which vary by nature, the average daily wage is what the worker received over their actual working days divided by the number of those days. The commission pay entry covers that second case.
In both cases the frequency under Article 90 of the Labor Law stays as it is. What changes is the method by which the amount paid on each date is worked out.
Wage payment dates while a worker is detained: Article 97 of the Labor Law
Under Article 97 of the Labor Law, where the worker is detained by the competent authorities in matters connected with the work or arising from it, the employer must pay 50% of the wage until the case is decided, provided that the detention does not exceed 180 days. Beyond that period the employer owes nothing for the excess. If the worker is acquitted, or the investigation is closed for want of proof, the employer must return what was previously deducted. If the worker is convicted, what was paid is not recovered from them unless the judgment provides otherwise.
That rule governs both the amount and the continuation of payment. Its text neither suspends the frequency set by Article 90 of the Labor Law nor moves it to another date.
The channel for wage payment dates, and the exception written into Article 90 of the Labor Law
Paragraph 1 of Article 90 of the Labor Law requires the wage and every amount due to the worker to be paid in the official currency of the country. Paragraph 2 of Article 90 of the Labor Law obliges establishments to pay wages into workers’ accounts through banks accredited in the Kingdom, provided that payment does not go beyond the due dates set out in paragraph 1.
The end of that paragraph carries a provision that can be left out when the text is summarised: the Minister may exempt some establishments from the bank payment obligation. The bank channel is therefore the rule in the text, with a power of exemption written beside it, and presenting it as an absolute rule with no exception reports the provision incompletely.
The bank payment obligation can be mistakenly dated to the 2024 amendments. It entered Article 90 of the Labor Law through Royal Decree M/46 of 5/6/1436H. Monitoring of this obligation, and the violations and fines attached to breaching it, are covered in our entry on the Wage Protection System (WPS), the Ministry programme that checks, among other things, whether each deposit was made on time against its due date.
What follows when wage payment dates are missed
Lateness is measured from the due date under Article 90 of the Labor Law, not from the establishment’s habit, and the consequence is stated in Article 94 of the Labor Law. The validity of the date is a condition for everything that follows it: an establishment that has not fixed its payment date in its contracts and its work regulation has no date against which a breach can be measured, and none against which its own compliance can be shown either.
Article 94 of the Labor Law is wider at two points than the way it can be reported, and it carries a condition of its own:
- Who may apply. The worker, their representative, or the director of the competent labour office may apply to the labour court. The application does not depend on the worker acting alone.
- When the lateness counts. Article 94 of the Labor Law applies where the employer is late in paying the wage on its statutory due date without legitimate justification. That qualifier is part of the text.
- What the court may do. Where the court establishes the deduction or the unjustified delay, it may impose on the employer a fine not exceeding double the amount deducted or double the value of the delayed wage.
The fine is discretionary in the wording of Article 94 of the Labor Law, and it is the labour court that imposes it. So it is not an automatic consequence of a date passing, and it is not an administrative penalty imposed without a judgment. Describing it as either would change both the body that imposes it and the nature of the ruling. The same provision also covers deductions made without the worker’s written consent for a reason the Labor Law does not provide for.
Wage payment dates and the final settlement deadline
The deadline for settling entitlements when the employment relationship ends runs on a separate clock. Under Article 88 of the Labor Law, when a worker’s service ends for any reason, the employer must pay the wage and settle the entitlements within one week at most of the end of the contractual relationship. Where the worker is the one who ended the contract, the entitlements are settled in full within no more than two weeks. That deadline runs from the date the relationship ended, and it is set out in our guide to wage payment dates and the final settlement.
Carrying one deadline over to the other mixes a recurring monthly cycle with an event that happens once.
The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 2 (the definitions of the month, the basic wage, the actual wage and the unqualified wage), Article 88 (the settlement deadline at the end of the relationship), Article 90 (the frequency, currency and channel of payment), Article 94 (late payment and the court’s power to fine), Article 95 (a wage the contract does not state), Article 96 (wages by the piece, by production or wholly by commission) and Article 97 (payment during detention), together with Article 15 of the model work regulation annexed to the Implementing Regulation (the wage payment date). Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended a number of provisions of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Articles 90 to 97 of the Labor Law, and it left the two wage definitions in Article 2 of the Labor Law unchanged.
Before wage payment dates are fixed in a work regulation
The step that can prevent a dispute is to write the payment date explicitly into the employment contract or the work regulation, and to write beside it what is meant by a month. The text leaves both points to one of those two documents, and whatever is not written there can remain open to dispute at the first objection.
This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.
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